With a foundation as a sophisticated mail-order operation that began in 1889, Sears Roebuck & Company successfully created the role of “buyer for the American farm” by connecting rural people to retail goods. Its goals were to reach communities in rural areas that had limited access to retail stores and to provide affordable and quality goods that might otherwise only be found in the largest cities.

On August 8, 1927, Memphis Mayor Rowlett Paine officially opened the Memphis Sears distribution center and retail store in the Crosstown neighborhood. As one of ten nationwide distribution centers, the Crosstown facility was one of the last three catalog centers to be opened prior to the Great Depression.

The initial 650,000 square-foot facility was built in only 180 days and eventually grew to a 1.5 million square-foot complex. The catalog distribution function of the building remained in use until 1993, when all catalog sales nationwide at Sears were discontinued. Partial operations were also relocated to newer warehouse facilities in other parts of Memphis, and the building was abandoned.

Constructed between 1900 and 1922, Loray Mill is a nationally significant example of early twentieth-century industrial construction and one of the largest textile mills ever built in North Carolina. Originally developed for cotton cloth production, the mill was converted to tire fabric manufacturing following its acquisition by the Jenckes Spinning Company in 1919. Subsequent expansions in 1921 and 1922 reflected the mill’s growing role in regional industrial production and its contribution to Gastonia’s emergence as a textile hub known as “Spindle City.” 

Loray Mill is also historically notable as the site of the 1929 Loray Mill Strike, which involved more than 1,000 workers and brought national attention to labor conditions in the Southern textile industry. The strike was driven in part by the “stretch-out,” a management practice that increased worker workloads while reducing staffing levels. In the wake of the strike, Loray Mill closed and was later purchased by Firestone Tire and Rubber Company, which operated the facility until 1993. After decades of vacancy, the property began a phased historic rehabilitation in 2013, continuing to this day. 

Constructed in 1912, the George W. Adair School is a two-story brick building located at the heart of the Adair Park neighborhood in Atlanta, Georgia. Adair Park, a “bungalow suburb,” was developed between the 1890s to the 1940s and features a variety of unique architectural styles, including Queen Anne and Folk Victorian, English Revival, and the predominant American Craftsman bungalows.

The George W. Adair School was designed in the Academic Gothic Revival style by Edward Dougherty, one of Atlanta’s leading architects of the time known for his works throughout Atlanta, including Druid Hills Baptist Church, Druid Hills Golf Club, Imperial Hotel, and the Highland School. For almost 60 years, it operated as both a school and a community gathering center, until enrollment began to diminish in the early 1960s. The school shut its doors in the fall of 1973 and has remained vacant and decaying ever since.

In the late 1800s, Fall River, Massachusetts, had become one of the country’s leading textile regions in America and, by the turn of the century, housed more than 1 million spindles in operation, second in the world to only Manchester, England. Originally known as the Bradford Durfee Textile School, the facility opened its doors in 1904 to provide advanced courses in textile manufacturing and chemistry to educate the rapidly growing population of local mill workers.

The school was named by the school’s original landowner, Miss Sarah S. Brayton, a descendant of local textile industry pioneer and Civil War veteran Maj. Bradford Dufree. Classes initially offered included advanced designing, electrical laboratory, motor testing, hand warping, loom, mechanical drawing, and machine shop.

The school expanded over the years and started to offer additional courses of study, eventually gaining the ability to award Bachelor’s degrees. At that point, the school’s name was changed to the Bradford Durfee College of Technology. In 1960, it merged with a neighboring technical institute to form the Southeastern Massachusetts Technological Institute and, in 1991, was acquired and merged with several branches of the University of Massachusetts to become UMass Dartmouth, vacating the building in the transition. A local community college briefly took over some of the space for classes but left nearly 20 years ago. The building has since sat vacant, awaiting a new use.

The 74,000 square foot, five-building campus will soon become the Creative Class Lofts and provide 44 market-rate apartments, 11 affordable apartments for practicing artists, and 23,345 square feet of commercial, community, and retail space.

Anchoring the commercial portion of the building will be the Spectrum Empowerment Project and the Youth Musical Theater Corporation (YMTC). Spectrum provides autistic adults with an alternate path to college and employment through economic independence, social growth, and creative expression. YMTC is a nonprofit, all-volunteer organization that provides young people with the opportunity to participate in theatrical experiences and produces two Broadway-style musicals each year. The building will also include a 170-seat event space/black box theater to support these groups, as well as an art gallery open to the public.

Groundwork, a Massachusetts-based coworking space provider, will be opening a new site within Creative Class Lofts after celebrating five years of successful growth in their New Bedford location. The Groundwork space will provide coworking memberships and support several local businesses, including Entrepreneurship for All (“E for All”), a year-long small business incubation program.

The Delaware Power Station of the Philadelphia Electric Company was, at its peak, Philadelphia’s largest power station in the post-World War I period and a critical component to the company’s incredible growth. Founded in 1899 and incorporated in 1902, Philadelphia Electric first formed as a corporation by consolidating many small electric utilities under a single large holding company with the goal of being the sole supplier of electricity to the city. A critical success toward the goal of standardization began in 1902 with the construction of the largest coal-powered central power plant in the world known as Schuylkill A-1. When run at full capacity, this station could generate all of the city’s electricity needs at a lower cost than what was possible through multiple smaller plants.

Within just 16 years, a site expansion, and the construction of a second station, by 1918, the company’s customer base and power needs had grown more than fivefold and continued to increase. This demand was further compounded by the industrial expansion resulting from the United States entering World War I. To meet the ever-growing needs, Philadelphia Electric began the two-phase construction of the Delaware Power Station in 1917. By 1923, the Delaware Station was in full operation and capable of generating over 46% of the city’s electricity when running at its full capacity, making it the largest power station in the Philadelphia Electric system.

Over the next several decades the company would continue to dominate the industry, constructing additional stations around the city and expanding the Delaware station once more in 1953. Although no expansions occurred after 1953, the Delaware Station continued to power a large portion of Philadelphia over the next several decades.

With the development of newer generating technologies such as nuclear power, however, the Delaware Station’s dependence on fossil fuels, both coal and oil, meant that it was becoming increasingly inefficient. By 1969, the original sections of the station were retired, leaving only the 1953 expansion in operation. Philadelphia Electric was acquired by the Exelon company in 2000 and, by 2008, the station ceased to function as a power plant. Exelon sold the station in 2015 when early development plans for the station’s future use began. Current ownership acquired the property in late 2019.

The former power station is now ‘The Battery,’ a 500,000 square foot dynamic multifamily and workplace campus experience on the Delaware River, adjacent to the heart of the bustling Fishtown neighborhood in Philadelphia, with a specific focus towards open-air, greenspace, and health and wellness.

The campus was developed in three phases, the first of which focused on two of the original historic structures, the “Boiler House” and the “Switchgear Building,” as well as an expansive public outdoor space. The Boiler House contains 239 loft and rooftop apartments, 49,000 square feet of office space on the ground floor, and a dramatic 2-story central amenity hub. Amenities include lounge, meeting, co-working, and café space with a rooftop outdoor terrace and garden. The Switchgear Building renovation created 45 studio and one-bedroom units and 25,000 square feet of event space operated by Cescaphe, a well-established event brand in Philadelphia.

The Battery lies directly adjacent to Penn Treaty Park and features a large outdoor space along the Delaware River waterfront with direct access to trails for walking/biking.

Originally known as Clifton Mill No. 3, the building was constructed in 1896 on the bank of the Pacolet River as part of the Clifton Manufacturing Company, one of the largest textile mills in the United States. The mill complex was part of the major growth of Spartanburg County, South Carolina’s textile industry leading the area to become one of the nation’s largest textile centers. At its peak, the factory complex housed over 57,000 spindles and 2,200 looms by the year 1900, nearly twice the number of its nearby competitors.

On June 6, 1903, a devastating flash flood destroyed dozens of homes and businesses, including Mill No. 3. It was rebuilt within the year as a five-story mill complex with adjacent cotton warehouses by the famed Boston mill engineering and architectural firm Lockwood, Greene, and Company. It remained a working textile mill for over 50 years.

By mid-century, Spartanburg County’s hold on the textile industry began to loosen and in 1965, the Clifton Manufacturing Company was sold to Dan River Mills, a large textile firm based out of Virginia. It was the beginning of the end as the company shut down all three mills between 1968 and 1973. Converse Mill was used as a warehouse for many years until two of the three mills were demolished between 2002 and 2013. The only remaining vestige of the vast Clifton Manufacturing Company is Converse Mill.

In 2006, a local owner purchased the building to preserve its history and bring new opportunities to Spartanburg County.

The Mercantile Library Building and the Formica Building have rich histories that are deeply intertwined with Cincinnati’s architectural and cultural heritage. The Mercantile Library was originally established in 1835 by a group of young men who pooled their resources to collect books, art, and host prominent speakers and authors. Over the years, the library has welcomed renowned figures such as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Herman Melville, and Harriet Beecher Stowe. As the collection grew to nearly 2,000 books, the need for a dedicated space led to the construction of the Mercantile Library Building at 414 Walnut Street in 1904. The building was designed by Joseph G. Steinkamp & Brother and was developed by Thomas Emery Sons, who contributed to the development of several skyscrapers in Downtown Cincinnati during the early 20th century. The building featured commercial space on the first floor and office space on the floors above. The 11th and a portion of the 12th floor were custom designed to house the Mercantile Library.

The institution has a perpetually renewable 10,000-year lease issued by Cincinnati College, thanks to the support provided by the men of the Mercantile Library Association after the college’s structure burned in 1845. The Mercantile Library Building was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2021.

The Formica Building, located at 120 East Fourth Street, along with the connected Crystal Arcade and Contemporary Arts Center at 255 East Fifth Street, were developed by Towne Properties and designed by Harry Weese & Associates of Chicago, a firm renowned for designing the Metro stations in Washington, DC. Completed in 1970, the Formica Building was constructed with travertine, glass, and bronze, showcasing modern, Miesian, and post-modern elements. The design incorporated elements from the neighboring Mercantile Library Building, such as eliminating the band of travertine between the 11th and 12th floors to mimic the double-height library. The Contemporary Arts Center (CAC) was housed in the Formica Building from 1970 to 2003, before moving into the newly constructed Lois & Richard Rosenthal Center for Contemporary Art in the spring of 2003.

Today, the Formica Building holds the distinction of being the most recently constructed building in Cincinnati to be listed on the National Register of Historic Places. As both the Mercantile Library Building and the Formica Building undergo an adaptive reuse transformation, their storied pasts will contribute to the revitalization of Cincinnati’s urban core and serve as a testament to the city’s architectural and cultural legacy.

The Bellevue-Stratford Hotel, at the southwest corner of South Broad and Walnut Streets in Center City Philadelphia, was completed in 1904 in the French Renaissance style and was described at the time as the most luxurious hotel in the nation and perhaps the most spectacular hotel building in the world, with the most magnificent ballroom in the US on the first floor. Modeled after the Waldorf-Astoria in Manhattan, it boasted 19 floors, 725 rooms, and the grandest event space in the city: a 500-person ballroom that could host events for nearly 3,000 people when including adjoining spaces. For many decades the Bellevue-Stratford, the “Grand Dame of Broad Street,” was Philadelphia’s largest hotel. Thomas Edison was involved in the lighting design for the hotel, creating fixtures as well as a switchboard for the hotel’s ballroom. Throughout its time in operation, 15 presidents were guests at the hotel, including Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson. 

Apart from a large addition in 1912, which brought the square footage to 657,000 and the room total above 1,000 and added the iconic cameo rooms and other function spaces to the 19th floor, the hotel remained largely unchanged until its closing. In 1976, an outbreak of an unidentified respiratory disease led to the hotel’s sudden closure. In 1978 the building was sold to the Richard I. Rubin Company, saving it from demolition. Rubin undertook a $25 million renovation, reducing the key count to 565 and restoring the public areas, before reopening it as the Fairmont. Westin later acquired an interest in the building, and the Hotel was renamed the Westin Bellevue Stratford in 1983 before closing in 1986 due to low occupancy. In 1988, a new owner reopened the building as The Bellevue, converting much of the hotel to office and cutting an atrium into the remaining hotel portion.